


A Man, Unwound

by Elliott_Fletcher



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, Child Neglect, F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Roy Mustang has Dyslexia, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 12:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elliott_Fletcher/pseuds/Elliott_Fletcher
Summary: “I won’t tell,” He said. He was a better listener than a reader, after all. And this way he’d get some hands-on experience with the first principle in the book—equivalent exchange.





	A Man, Unwound

It wasn’t for good, and Madame knew that. She knew it wasn’t for good and still she doted after Roy, all her girls trailing behind to see him off. Fourteen was too old to keep cooped up in a house yet too young to leave the nest completely.

“Only in the days. I want you home every night, Roy, and in time to set the table.” This was their compromise. She secured him an apprenticeship with an alchemy teacher—Berthold Hawkeye—just as Roy had longed for. He was local: a long taxi from their house, an even longer walk. That was as she wished. Roy was nowhere near ready for Central, even if her business was more suited to the city folk. As long as she was still raising foster children, she was keeping the family house.

Roy was pleased with the arrangement, more-so than he let on. Berthold Hawkeye . . . Master Hawkeye . . . Surely, he would have more to teach than the few mentioning's of alchemy in library books. He was teeming with possibilities and the want of knowledge.

Madame tucked a note into his breast pocket. Her meaty hand encompassed the pocket twofold, and she patted, thrice. Her Roy, the only boy in her home, and she was sending him off. He was not even grown enough to be deemed ‘Man of the House.’ His shoulders were broad, but his muscle was untrained. He was small, but only in comparison to her. 

Roy squeezed her middle and held on tight. Madame chuckled, “This again?”

“Thanks . . . for everything, Madame.”

“Quit acting like you’re leaving for good! It’s just a nine-to-five gig.” She heartily swatted his shoulder, and he shrugged away. She opened the taxi door, and he shuffled into his seat. He knew he would only be gone a few hours at a time—just the length of a regular shift, as Madame had pointed out. It still felt as though he was leaving something behind.

Madame waved him off, and the taxi rolled away from the curb. He cranked the window open and waved his handkerchief out the window. His sisters chorused a final, polytonal ‘Bye-bye, Roy-Boy!’ as he drove away.

“It’s good to meet you, Sir.” 

A great man held presence in the study Roy was faced with. Litter was strewn across each wooden surface. The man would’ve appeared greater if his stature wasn’t contained in a wheelchair. Newspaper clippings taped to the wall behind the man labelled him Berthold Hawkeye, indeed the one Roy was looking for. And yet he was everything unexpected. This man was not the one etched in ink or written about. This man was a threaded bobble . . . unwound.

“Who let you in?” Berthold asked, his countenance as un-composed as the books that lay around Roy’s feet. He stepped past them and shakily offered his hand.

“Your daughter, I believe.”

Berthold shook his head in small, sporadic movements, like a seizure crafted of doubt. “I have a daughter,” he muttered, unsure. “You must be Royce Mustang.”

“ _Roy_ Mustang, Sir, at your service and eager to learn.”

Berthold stroked the straggly hairs along his chin. “Very well then,” with a vast sweep of his arm, he knocked a stack of books from atop his desk to the floor. One landed ajar, pages fluttering open to _Chapter 1: Equivalent Exchange_. Roy knelt to grab the books. Berthold clutched Roy’s chin between his bony fingers and drew him face-to-face. The man looked like a corpse in his chair—with dead, wrinkled hands and dead, wispy hair, and dead, dead eyes. His breath smelled like coffee beans and mold, so strong Roy could taste it.

“Find solitude and learn. Any place will do besides this study and the attic.” He released him, and Roy rubbed his chin where it began to ache. “Return to me once you’ve finished.”

_Great_ , Roy thought, _More books_. Reading always made him drowsy. He tucked the thick, leather bindings to his chest and hastily left the room. The study door clicked behind him, and a key turned in the lock.

He took this as an invitation to wander. He followed the dim hallway in search of a good place to study, one that didn’t give him the creeps. One door led to cluttered living quarters. Dishes lined the surfaces and dark clothes layered the floor. The next door opened into an unkempt bathroom that smelled of bleach, and through another was a kitchen. It appeared to be entirely unfunctional, as though no one had bothered to make food as of late. Roy found this especially odd in comparison to Madame’s house which centred around their kitchen and their shared meals as an unorthodox family. 

He hugged the books closer to his chest and continued on. The last room he entered was by far the least eerie. The curtains were a white lace and drawn to either side of the window. The sun’s light filtered in through murky glass leaving patterns on the floor and dust motes visible in the air. _Enough light to read by_ , Roy thought as he settled onto the floor. He laid stomach-down on a burgundy rug aside an old bed frame. He laid each book in front of him, ordering them by their volume numbers. 

_Volume 1: Understanding Alchemic Principles . . ._ He flipped past the preface and author’s notes and began at _Chapter 1_. He read for what felt like hours—until the sun turned golden and his stomach grew empty. He readjusted positions, tossing and turning every which way as he forced himself to read on. He had completed seven chapters already and understood much less than that. 

“So, you like to read, too, huh?”

Roy yelped, scrambling to the wall and pressing himself against it. He swallowed his heart and lowered his head, slowly, to the ground to peer beneath the bed. There lay the girl who let him in, her blonde hair draped across the floorboards, her piercing eyes just visible over the brim of her book.

“Pardon me!” Roy choked out.

“You like to read, too?” She repeated, slower.

Roy shook his head, his cheek brushing the cool hardwood floor. “Well, I wouldn't call it a passion.”

“Oh,” She hummed, disappointed. There was a loud crash in another room, and she shrunk away.

“I like everything I learn from the pages,” Roy continued, forcing words out, fast, to keep her attention. “But my eyes burn whenever I try to read, and the words never seem to be in the right places.”

“How about your ears? Do they work right?” She crawled a little closer, but only the tip of her nose protruded from beneath the bed frame.

“I can hear you now, can’t I? We have been talking, you and I.” He inched towards her, crouching to lay on his stomach once more. They mirrored each other, he cast in light, her in shadow. 

“Father told me not to meddle with the books from his study. I've been dying to read them.” She stretched out her arm, and he eyed it carefully before nudging _Volume 1_ under her palm.

“I won’t tell,” He said. He was a better listener than a reader, after all. And this way he’d get some hands-on experience with the first principle in the book—equivalent exchange.

They worked together, on and on like that for days, starting early and struggling onward until Roy would remember he was needed home an hour previous. It took only a week to get through the stack of books assigned, yet Roy felt like he had more questions than answers at that point. Once he learned the basics, however, Master Hawkeye allowed him into the study to observe his work. Roy spent half his days reading books with Riza and the other half watching Master Hawkeye demonstrate his alchemy. Roy knew this was the goal, knew he learned more from his Master than from the books, and yet he preferred listening to Riza read aloud to him, stumbling over some of the larger words. Roy knew for certain if he was the one reading aloud, he would be stumbling over more than just the large ones.

One afternoon, they had tucked themselves into the little corner of Riza’s room when a cacophony rose from the study. Riza’s face fell blank as she tossed her book aside, jumping to her feet. She unlatched the window and heaved the glass pane above her head, but the pane grew unwilling and fell back into her weak arms. The noise grew close, shouts accompanying the shatter of household items used as projectiles. Roy ran to the window, hands slamming against the glass. He didn’t feel the cold winter air—just the pressing need to escape. He held the pane up for her to climb out and scrambled after her. The door flew open as they ran away, breath fast and urgent. He glanced behind him only to see the expression of a wild animal where a father’s loving face should be.

Riza was afraid, and that meant Roy was, too. He ran until she stopped, and she only stopped when they reached the main road. 

“We can’t go back for a while,” she said. “I have a place I go when this happens, but it’s mine. It’s the one thing I have. I can’t share it with you.”

“I understand,” he said, walking now, along the road. “I have lots of sisters. There are things I refuse to share, too. If I didn’t, I’d have nothing.” Rain began to fall, and he slipped his jacket from his shoulders to hold above their heads. “I’ve had nothing before, Riza.” He looked into her eyes; they were wet like the asphalt they tread upon. “You can’t afford to have nothing.” 

They walked shoulder to shoulder to stay dry until they reached a house. Upon knocking, an elderly woman allowed them in to make a phone call. She fussed over them, scolding them for being out in the rain. “Why, you’re just wee ones. You’ll catch your death out there like that.”

Madame arrived in her business car and scooped them up into the back seat. They were both the cold sort of wet that lingers. She shook free from her fur coat and draped it over the two shivering lumps. When they arrived, his sisters bustled around them much like the elderly lady, and soon they were dried, fed, and given a mug of tea, each. A bed was made on the floor for Riza, right beside the fireplace. No one wanted their own beds, not when the commotion was at the hearth. His four sisters gathered beside Riza, asking question after question. Madame had to shoo them off to their rooms before they would even let her breathe.

Madame lowered herself to the floor beside Riza and Roy, groaning as her muscles strained. “Now, I don’t want to overwhelm you, so I’m only going to ask you one question.”

Riza nodded, tucking herself further into her bundle of blankets.

“Are you safe living in your father's house?”

Roy remembered every unwell feeling since she opened the door to him. . . . with Berthold and his shaken demeanour, with the ghost of a house, no food in the cupboards, and the wild look in his eyes when he stormed into Riza’s room. It was a shell of a home and her father did the haunting.

Riza shook her head, _No_.

Roy and Riza returned the next day. The front door was locked but the back door was not, and they snuck inside like nothing had happened. Of course, they were loaded with canned goods and nonperishable foods. They had been given explicit instructions to pry up a floorboard and store all the cans in Riza’s room. Eating utensils were hidden in folded socks, and Riza was assured that if she were ever ready to leave her home, there would ‘always be a bed open at Madame Christmas’s house for a girl in need.’

She never came knocking on their door. Everyone dealt with their own demons. . . . hers just happened to be her own father. Roy maintained his apprenticeship until his enrolment at the military academy. RIza saw him off, tucking a note into his breast pocket. She patted it, thrice, and said, “The buzz cut doesn’t suit you, Roy.”

He laughed heartily and stepped onto the train. “You better not die before we meet again.”

“Not a chance.”


End file.
